Tl:Dr; I (we) finished my day 1 plan at night! And, I skipped part of the official route, so I’m out of the TD? Still: Monumental (for me)
The weather in S.W. new mexico was very hot yesterday. Jeff (the owner of the Hatchita Bike Ranch) took us down to Antelope Wells, arriving at 10pm. The idea is: get out of the heat. And the plan was: ride back to Hatchita Bike Ranch (HBR), and if you’re feeling awesome keep going to Silver City. Also: Dave sticks to the official Tour Divide route, while the other two riders here (El Jefe and Erik) ride the GDMBR route.
For context: my day started at 2:30a with about 2 hours of sleep, had 2 plane rides, a 3 hr car trip, a bit of bike repair (lights damaged in shipping), and a really lovely time getting to know El Jefe, Erik and Jeff. I was really excited and raring to go.
Driving in S.W. new mexico at night is tricky. No cows were killed but it was close. The bunnies fares worse.
El Jefe, Erik and I left (no drafting) right at 10. The GDMBR route is: follow the road to Hatchita, which is what we did. The Garmin Brandon B. lent me was awesome, although I forgot to start it until about 5 miles in. It kept me eating and drinking. First couple hours were really fun – it was mostly comfortably cool (less than 80 degrees), and easy riding.
At about hour 3 we ‘found’ the TD route (I rode right past it). The trail head for the CDT route. After 10 minutes of messing around – there just was no way I was riding in sand, through thorn bushes on a seemingly invisible trail without the right lights. So, I decided to stick to the 2023 route (which is also the GDMBR route).
Getting to the trail head was hard. Hard to see, getting through the gorse was tricky, the area was gated and getting it open in the dark was hard (ok not very hard). Then looking west on the trail with my bike light seemed like it was pretty much just sandy desert, not a sign of a trail. I’m sure it’s totally obvious in the day. It probably would have become obvious if I had gotten out my head lamp. But in the moment, the prospect of climbing 4k feet over 2 peaks and basically pushing my bike (sand) seemed really, really dumb. I decided to ride on with El Jefe and Erik. I think that was the right call.
I don’t think this is some huge tragedy, but I am a little disappointed to have chickened (ha – I literally chickened out, thanks to Selma) out at the first real obstacle.
Edit: this is still a huge success. So many things could have gone wrong, so many more if I’d wandered off into the desert. Monumental is right.
There’s a lot of gate keeping around the Tour Divide – strenuous attempts to keep it from getting flooded with Tourists. And I get it: the competitive racers are _amazing_. I’m not, and have not planned to be a competitive racer, but I did set out to do the course. The route last night is new, so maybe I could skate by and say I am doing the 2023 course. But the more honest thing to do is to own up to being a tourist. In my heart of hearts I still think I’m a special tourist, but I’d you have to separate the competitive racers from everybody else, I’m 100%, 100,000% in the everybody else category.
Next step: figure out the next step. I slept pretty well last night. The temperature here is supposed to be 109 today. My plan is: don’t ride in that!
Maybe I’ll head out again this evening for Silver City. Maybe I’ll go see what that trail looks like in the light of day, and decide to restart? Maybe I’ll hold off and start on the official Grande Depart (maybe with some other racers). Maybe I’ll relegate myself from the Tour Divide and focus on the GDMBR.
Leave a Reply